Picking the right Network Storage

[gb1995]

Hello,

 

We're currently upgrading our office in terms of hardware and stuff due to getting more employees. We used to use a usb harddrive as an archive between 2 notebooks. Since we're upgrading to 5 computers( 4 on lan, 1 on Wifi) we're looking for a solution so all of our employees can access this "archive" drive at the same thing.

 

Since i'm not very familliar in the NAS/DAS/Server world i'm seeking for help or atleast a little push in the right direction. I would go for a NAS but we do not need to access the files remotely. We basically need a HDD, SSD or a combination of both, since speed is somewhat useful since we're occassionally writing 1GB+ files, which we can hook up to our router.

 

I hope I've informed you enough and I'am looking forward to your response.

 

Thanks in advance,

Gino

[Mr.Humble]

Hi! 

 

How much storage do you use now and how much do you project to need after the expansion? Do you want to use this archive for computer backups as well? 

 

Your best course of action is probably getting an off the shelf 4 slot NAS box from a reputable brand such as Synology or QNAP, either with hard drives installed or buying appropriate capacity separately, and configuring it to something like RAID5 with hot spare or RAID6. It will be much faster and more reliable than just a single drive.

 

You could get a single drive to backup the NAS off-site.

[gb1995]

Hello @Mr.Humble

 

thanks for your reply. Currently we have a seagate 4tb usb3 i believe. Atleast 4tb is the best. Ive seen a qnap 4 slot with the ability to place a m.2 for caching. Is that any good? An all ssd nas would be good too. Our budget is like +-1000$

[Mr.Humble]

37 minutes ago, gb1995 said:

Hello @Mr.Humble

 

thanks for your reply. Currently we have a seagate 4tb usb3 i believe. Atleast 4tb is the best. Ive seen a qnap 4 slot with the ability to place a m.2 for caching. Is that any good? An all ssd nas would be good too. Our budget is like +-1000$

If you don't have > 1Gbit network you won't be able to take advantage of an all SSD configuration, but an SSD cache can be useful for RAID5 and 6 as the write speeds are significantly lower compared to individual hard drives - the NAS needs to calculate the parity bit (sector) on write.

 

You could in theory just go with RAID5 of say 3 4TB NAS drives, giving total of 8TB usable capacity, and a 250-500GB SATA SSD.

 

I've been Czeching out the QNAP NASes with expansion card slots some time back, before I deployed a Storage Spaces solution using an existing PC, because I too was intrigued by the possibility of M.2 SSDs and 10Gbit network card. But I don't have any experience using them and I don't know if you can configure SSD caching with an SSD in one of the hard drive bays.

 

From reviews the QNAP boxes are pricey, but quality.

[jake9000]

You might consider just upgrading your workstations to have a decent amount of built-in storage each and using OneDrive. O365 Business Premium is $12.50/user/month. Each user gets 1tb of OneDrive space and you can have a Team Sharepoint of 1TB. Only caveat is no individual file can be larger than 25GB. 

This also gets you business email accounts, secure chat, collaborative documents, etc. 

 

Add backups for $60/computer/year (Backblaze) and you'll have a robust little network going on with no local infrastructure needed. 

[gb1995]

6 hours ago, jake9000 said:

You might consider just upgrading your workstations to have a decent amount of built-in storage each and using OneDrive. O365 Business Premium is $12.50/user/month. Each user gets 1tb of OneDrive space and you can have a Team Sharepoint of 1TB. Only caveat is no individual file can be larger than 25GB. 

This also gets you business email accounts, secure chat, collaborative documents, etc. 

 

Add backups for $60/computer/year (Backblaze) and you'll have a robust little network going on with no local infrastructure needed. 

We currently have the most expensive dropbox service but it's annoying we keep having to wait on the syncing(twice). The NAS will server as a server where we can work from as well as a backup for projects.

[gb1995]

Also, our current external hdd writes/reads at about 150mb/s is this something we can achieve with 1Gbit/s cables/switches?

 

Edit:

In order to fit a SSD in the QNAP I need some kind of adapter from 2.5 -> 3.5, Which kind of adapter do I need? QNAP isn't really clear in this online.

[jake9000]

https://www.startech.com/HDD/Brackets/2-5-drive-mounting-bracket~BRACKET125PT

Any bay that can hold a 3.5" hdd can hold this bracket. 

[LachlanTech]

22 hours ago, gb1995 said:

Also, our current external hdd writes/reads at about 150mb/s is this something we can achieve with 1Gbit/s cables/switches?

 

Edit:

In order to fit a SSD in the QNAP I need some kind of adapter from 2.5 -> 3.5, Which kind of adapter do I need? QNAP isn't really clear in this online.

What QNAP NAS was it you were looking at?

 

The one I've recently got has the m2 slot on the board, so I installed the SSD directly to the mobo and didn't need to use any adapter.

 

And to confirm, yes you can use the SSD to cache your drives.

 

 

[gb1995]

On 8/22/2019 at 7:25 AM, LachlanTech said:

What QNAP NAS was it you were looking at?

 

The one I've recently got has the m2 slot on the board, so I installed the SSD directly to the mobo and didn't need to use any adapter.

 

And to confirm, yes you can use the SSD to cache your drives.

 

 

Hello,

 

its the QNAP TS-431P2-4G